Air Force: Remains of service members went to landfill
By: Charles Hoskinson December 8, 2011 04:53 PM EST

The Air Force confirmed Thursday that unclaimed partial remains of 274 U.S. service members were incinerated and disposed of in a Virginia landfill between 2003 and 2008, following what were then standard procedures.

“That was the common practice at the time,” Lt. Gen. Darrell D. Jones, Air Force deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services, said at a news conference called to deal with growing public concern over the practice, which he said went on for an unknown number of years before it was stopped in 2008.

“We regret any additional grief to the families that past practices may have caused.”

The Washington Post first reported that records show the partial cremated remains of at least 274 troops were sent to the landfill in King George’s County. The Post story said family members were not told of how the remains were disposed of and Air Force officials do not plan to do so now. The practice also wasn’t disclosed to senior Pentagon officials reviewing cremation policies in 2008, the story said.

Jones said Air Force officials decided that year to discontinue the practice — which was only used for fragments of bone or soft tissue of service members whose families refused to claim them — because a new leadership team that included Gen. Norton Schwartz, the current Air Force chief of staff, decided that burial at sea was more dignified.

The first such burial of 14 urns of unclaimed remains took place earlier this year, he said.

Jones said Air Force officials would give a full accounting for any family members who change their minds about notification. The service has set up a 24-hour hotline and an email address for information.

“We’ll tell them everything we know,” Jones said. “We are prepared to apologize. It causes us great pain to think that we have brought suffering to a family.”

Earlier, Pentagon spokesman Capt. John Kirby said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is aware of the Post report and “is comfortable with the way the Air Force has handled this.”

He noted that workers at the military mortuary were the ones who recommended stopping the practice of dumping remains in a landfill. “It wasn’t something imposed upon them. It wasn’t forced in some IG report. It was something they came up with on their own,” Kirby said.

Air Force officials had confirmed last month that unclaimed human remains left over from the embalming process were cremated and placed in a landfill after two separate investigations found management problems at the military mortuary. Pentagon press secretary George Little said those investigations did not cover that issue because the practice had been stopped before they began.

Little said the issue however would be studied by an independent panel looking at policies and practices at the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The panel, led by retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, has already begun work, and Panetta is “committed, obviously, to the principle that our fallen heroes and their families deserve the best in the way they are treated.”

Reports of problems at Dover and how the Air Force has handled them have mushroomed into a public scandal in the past month, with family members expressing their outrage and lawmakers calling for Congress to conduct a full-scale investigation.

“They just don’t want to ask questions or look very hard,” Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) told the Post. He has called on the House Armed Services Committee to hold hearings on the subject on behalf of a constituent killed in Iraq in 2006 whose remains were among those sent to the landfill.

Three people – two civilians and a military officer – were disciplined after an Air Force investigation started in June 2010 found they failed to maintain accountability for service members’ remains and could not show they were handled in accordance with their families’ instructions.

The investigation found that the remains of two service members had been lost, mortuary workers had removed a dead Marine’s arm bone to dress him in his uniform for viewing and that fetal remains were transported in reused cardboard boxes.

But a subsequent probe by the Office of Special Counsel criticized the Air Force investigation as inadequate, saying it “demonstrates a pattern of the Air Force’s failure to acknowledge culpability for wrongdoing relating to the treatment of remains of service members and their dependents.” The OSC report specifically noted evidence of retaliation against whistleblowers by one of the officials disciplined in the case and suggested the punishments for those responsible was too lax.

Panetta also has directed Air Force Secretary Michael Donley to report to him on what steps are being taken to fix problems identified by the OSC.